Solid cancerous tumors make up at least one-third of all malignancies. Such compact, fast-growing cancers are found all over the body including the lungs, prostate, breast, digestive tract, and skin. The present economic burden to treat such a widespread disease has to be $400 billion out of the $1.3 trillion cancer treatment cost leveled every year across the planet.
Unfortunately for the cancer patient, they are generally facing a state-of-the-art of at least a two-year miserable chemotherapy and/or ionizing radiation treatment regime(s). The invention presented herein is designed to tackle the malignance directly at the local cancer situs without circulating toxic chemicals throughout the body, as is the case with present-day chemotherapy regimens.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a division of the United Nations that issued a press release on Feb. 5, 2014, reporting that the cost globally of cancer was estimated at $1.16 trillion in 2010. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the specialized cancer agency of WHO, has reported that new cancer cases will skyrocket globally from an estimated 14 million in 2012 to 22 million new cases a year within the next two decades. The burden internationally has doubled over the last 20 year and it will double over the next 20.
The number of cancer deaths in the USA has risen as the population has grown, from 400,000 in 1990 to 550,000 in 2013.
The invention described in this document moves the main technology for treating cancer away from chemo-therapy, which affects the entire body, to the use of tiny electrical neuro encoded signals with calcium as an aimed treatment for solid tumors both within or on the surface of the human or animal body.
Early Neuro-Electric History
It all started in 1780 when Luigi Galvani, an Italian anatomist, attached two dissimilar wires to the spine of a large decapitated frog. Galvani passed a current into the frog by means of a static-electrically-charge rod and made the animal's legs jerk. He determined that nerves conducted electricity and, at that moment, launched the science of neurophysiology. Galvani's friend, Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the wet-cell battery, commented in 1800 that it was the electrical stimulation from the bi-metal wires which provided the energy to make the frog's legs kick. Thus began the use of stimulating currents to induce neurons to fire their signals, which continues in research universities to this very day.
It never occurred to anyone in those early years that the nerves were actually capable of generating signals on their own without the requirement for some sort of electrical stimulation. It is important to realize that there was no possible way to visualize the cells until after the microscope was invented by Zacharias Jansen in 1590. It wasn't until later in the 1600's that Antony van Leeuwenhoek improved upon that invention and was able to peer at what he called “animalcules.” What Leeuwenhock saw were microbes, which was previously unrealized by anyone. He mentioned that there had to be some connection between what he saw and diseases. Early microscopes were not used to study cellular or nervous system structure.
The microscope became more prevalent throughout most university laboratories by 1830 where many biologists began to explore the makeup of life. In Berlin around 1840, Theodor Schwann and Jacob Schleiden established that discrete cells were indeed the architectural building blocks of living tissue, be they plant or animal. This discovery paved the way for others to think about the individual function of many different kinds of cells. Previously, in 1836, Jan Purkinje, a Czech histology and physiologist and his student Gabriel Valentine were able to claim: “The entire nervous system is made up of globules (cells) and continuous primitive fibers (axons).” In 1837, Purkinje was able to describe brain cells with their nuclei and dendrites and the flask-like cells named “Purkinje cells,” which are efferent types.
By 1870, very few scientists knew what a neuron really was, much less what it looked like, or how it worked. Therefore, it was still impossible to describe a three-dimensional nervous system at that time in history. But this was to change around 1877 when Camillo Golgi of Italy was able to silver-stain individual neurons so they could be studied under the microscope. Using Golgi's stain, a Spanish professor was able to begin an exhaustive study of the details of neuronal anatomy. Santiago Ramon y Cajal had proposed that neurons were the signaling units for the entire nervous system. This is often referred to as the beginning of the “neuron doctrine.” From 1879, Cajal exhaustively studied the brain and many of its structures as he enlarged his understanding of the nervous system. Cajal published numerous technical papers to begin his explanation of the anatomical structure of nerves and the brain. Cajal became recognized throughout Europe by 1889 for his important work. As a result, both Golgi and Cajal shared the Nobel prized in physiology and medicine in 1906.
It was not until the late 20th and early 21st centuries that true bioelectronic medical treatment approaches involving the use of neuro-coded or electrical signaling technologies were possible. Recent advances in technology have allowed for the development of bioelectronic approaches to treating a variety of conditions, including cancer. True bioelectronic medical treatment applications are now possible given advancements in electronics and a better understand of how conditions such as cancer actually function in the human body.
The present inventor has been involved in the development of the premier bioelectronic technology of our time as outlined in a variety of bioelectronic medical treatment patents and patent applications covering the use of neuro-coded signaling technology. Validation of this bioelectronic technology is evidence by the fact that large pharmaceutical companies and organizations are now moving into the field of bioelectronics, albeit many years after the present inventor's initial patent application filings and without much in the way of intellectual property. For example, the monolithic international pharmaceutical giant GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) announced in 2013 that it was pursuing an effort toward the development of “electroceutical” or bioelectronic medicine (see “A Jumpstart-Start for Electroceuticals. Nature”, 11 Apr. 2013, Vol 496, pp. 159-161, Famm et al). Ironically, the present inventor's own research and thinking in the bioelectronic area was captured in patent filings many years prior to GSK's 2013 initiative.
To date, the primary approach to treating cancer based on bioelectronic technology has been outlined in patents and patent application publications by the present inventor. Such in inventions are disclosed in, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0286689 entitled “Method and System for Processing Cancer Cell Electrical Signals for Medical Therapy,” which published on Nov. 11, 2010; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0270248 entitled “System and Method to Elicit Apoptosis in Malignant Tumor Cells for Medical Treatment,” which published on Nov. 3, 2011; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0130754 entitled “Hybrid Scientific Computer System for Processing Cancer Cell Signals as Medical Therapy,” which published on Jun. 2, 2011; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/334,212 entitled “Method to Switch-Off Cancer Cell Electrical Communication Codes as Medical Therapy,” which was filed on Dec. 12, 2008. U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2010/0286689; 2011/0270248; 2011/0130754; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/334,212 are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. Additionally, U.S. Provisional patent application Ser. No. 14/621,659 entitled “Encoded Bioelectronic Method and System and Calcium Treatment for Slaying Cancer by Rapid Triggering of Cellular Apoptosis and Karyorrhexis,” which was filed on Feb. 13, 2015 is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.